US leading index held at 99.6 in September, Conference Board says

The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index for the United States was unchanged in September at 99.6, with 2016 set to 100, the research group said in a release updated October 22. The reading followed a 0.1% decline in August. The index rose 0.6% from March through September, reversing a 1.1% fall in the previous six-month period, from September 2025 through March 2026. The organization said July’s data had been revised upward, leaving the index at a higher level than in its previous August report.

The LEI combines ten forward-looking components, including manufacturing work hours, initial unemployment claims, new orders, building permits, share prices, credit conditions, the interest-rate spread and consumer expectations. It is designed to signal business-cycle turning points before they appear in measures of current activity. A flat monthly reading therefore describes the composite index, not a claim that every component or sector was unchanged. The Conference Board said five of the ten components made positive contributions in September, with the interest-rate spread and average weekly hours in manufacturing leading the gains.

Those gains were offset by a large decline in consumer expectations and smaller negative contributions from stock prices, new orders for nondefense capital goods and building permits, according to the organization. The release did not provide component-level percentage contributions in its text. It said the LEI’s six-month growth rate and diffusion index showed no recession signal under its 3Ds framework. In that framework, duration and depth examine the size and persistence of a decline, while diffusion measures how broadly weakness is spread across components; the group identifies a diffusion reading below 50 as a threshold condition in its warning rule.

Other composite measures moved higher. The Coincident Economic Index, which the Conference Board uses to describe current conditions, rose 0.3% in September to 115.3 (2016=100), after a 0.1% increase in August. It was up 0.9% over the six months through September, compared with 0.2% growth in the prior six months. All four CEI components—payroll employment, personal income less transfer payments, manufacturing and trade sales, and industrial production—made positive contributions in September, the release said.

The Lagging Economic Index increased 0.5% in September to 121.1 (2016=100), following a 0.2% rise in August. It gained 1.0% over the March–September period, twice the 0.5% rate in the preceding six months. The Conference Board said it expects US real GDP to grow at a 2.2% annualized rate in 2026 and 2.0% in 2027, describing both as higher than its earlier forecast. That outlook is the organization’s projection, not a government estimate or an observed result. The indexes summarize multiple indicators and should be read alongside other economic data rather than as stand-alone forecasts of recession or growth.